There are numerous toys and ‘magic tricks’ known in the art in which one or more objects are suspended in the air using a visible or near-invisible tether. For example, mobiles or small airplanes often use visible relatively thick tethers to control the path of the suspended object or airplane.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,572,482 teaches flying animals with moving wings that are, inter alia, suspended from a ceiling. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 3,893,256 teaches a toy plane that is coupled to a pair of tethers via a sleeve such that moving apart of the tethers by a user forces the toy along the path of the tethers to the point of tether attachment to a wall or post. Likewise, U.S. Pat. No. 4,244,136 discloses a suspension mechanism for toys in which a pulley system propels a carriage for a toy figure. Once one end of the pulley system is attached to a wall or other static structure, the player needs only one hand to propel to attached toy along the lines of the pulley system. Alternatively, the tether may be attached to a handle on one end and to a toy plane on the other end, and the player spins the toy using the handle in a circular motion as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,047,323. Similarly, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,620,018, a flying toy is attached to a post or ceiling via a tether, but is propelled by a jet fan impeller to provide player-independent propulsion. While such known toys advantageously secure the object or airplane in a robust manner and even allow significant forces on the object or airplane, the tether typically precludes the illusion of free flight or levitation as the flight path is determined by the straight line of the tether between the point of attachment and the flying toy.
To overcome the disadvantages associated with fixed tether attachment to a post or wall, a toy may be suspended from a hand held scissor-like device as, for example, described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,257,186. While such attachment advantageously allows ‘flying’ of the toy along any desired path, control of the hand held scissor-like device may be difficult for younger players and detract from a first-person perspective of ‘flying’ experience.
In other known examples, and especially with many ‘magic tricks’ in which the path of a suspended object is controlled via a near-invisible tether, the object is generally an object that one would not expect to fly or levitate to so create surprise and/or disbelief. Unfortunately, and especially where such tethers are very thin, manufacture, storage, and performance, are often problematic. For example, near-invisible tethers are typically monofilaments or thin filament bundles having a thickness of about 10-80 microns (less than the thickness of a single human hair), making controlled handling very difficult due to the very low tensile strength and tendency to tangle. Worse yet, such tethers are generally not available as a commodity and must be prepared by separation and unwinding from a multi-filament yarn, which requires considerable dexterity, attention span, and time commitment. Still further, attachment of the tether to the object is often complicated due to the near-invisible nature of the tether. Therefore, set-up for ‘magic tricks’ that rely on such tethers is often cumbersome and typically precludes small children (e.g., 10 years and younger) from such entertainment.
Therefore, while numerous methods of entertainment devices are known in the art, all or almost all of them suffer from one or more disadvantages. Consequently, there is still a need to provide improved composition and methods to improve wear resistance in such products.